Modular reconfiguration of an auditory control brain network supports adaptive listening behavior

Abstract

SignificanceHow do brain networks shape our listening behavior? We here develop and test the hypothesis that, during challenging listening situations, intrinsic brain networks are reconfigured to adapt to the listening demands and thus, to enable successful listening. We find that, relative to a task-free resting state, networks of the listening brain show higher segregation of temporal auditory, ventral attention, and frontal control regions known to be involved in speech processing, sound localization, and effortful listening. Importantly, the relative change in modularity of this auditory control network predicts individuals’ listening success. Our findings shed light on how cortical communication dynamics tune selection and comprehension of speech in challenging listening situations and suggest modularity as the network principle of auditory attention.

Reconfiguration dynamics of a language-and-memory network in healthy participants and patients with temporal lobe epilepsy

“…2 , Panel A, Subpanel 1): fronto-parietal, frontal, temporo-limbic and two fronto-temporo-parietal. The second fronto-temporo-parietal module includes language key regions (left triangularis and orbitalis, left superior and middle temporal, supramarginal gyri) which is in agreement with previous results revealing correlated activity of language systems during rest ( Alavash et al, 2019 , Muller and Meyer, 2014 ). The segregation of LMN extrinsic configuration, illustrated in in Fig.…”

Temporal stability of the ventral attention network and general cognition along the Alzheimer’s disease spectrum

“…Modularity, also referred to as community structure, is a data-driven approach for clustering nodes of a network into groups of densely interconnected regions, or communities ( Sporns and Betzel, 2016 ). It is an important property of brain networks, with FC modules (and their reconfiguration over time) playing an important role in normal cognitive function ( Bassett et al, 2011 , Jang et al, 2017 , Alavash et al, 2019 ), and various diseases ( Braun et al, 2016 , Contreras et al, 2019 ). While this is a powerful tool for studying networks, detecting network communities poses a challenging optimization problem that requires multiple iterations to achieve comprehensive sampling of partitions across multiple spatial scales ( Fortunato and Barthélemy, 2007 ).…”

A distributed dynamic brain network mediates linguistic tone representation and categorization

“…While most neural models attribute a key role for the STG in speech categorization, there is increasing evidence that speech category information is also present in the frontal and parietal regions ( Cheung et al, 2016 ; Correia et al, 2015 ; Du et al, 2014 ; Evans and Davis, 2015 ; Myers et al, 2009 ; Raizada and Poldrack, 2007 ). An emerging hypothesis is that the STG may be a functionally specialized ‘core’ region that subserves speech representation and categorization in optimal listening environments; under less supportive (e.g., noisy or greater perceptual confusability) listening conditions, achieving perceptual constancy and categorization involve frontoparietal networks in addition to the STG ( Alain et al, 2018 ; Alavash et al, 2019 ; Feng et al, 2018 ).…”